(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

And as we always do, we're going to read the entire passage. You could follow along silently while I read 1 Timothy, chapter 3. Starting in verse number 1, the Bible reads, this is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre, but patient, not a brawler, not covetous, one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity. For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must have a good rapport of them which are without, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. Likewise, must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre, holding the mystery of the faith in a pure conscience. And let these also first be proved, then let them use the office of a deacon being found blameless. Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful in all things. Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children in their own house as well. For they that have used the office of a deacon well purchase to themselves a good degree and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus. These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly, but if I tarry long that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Brother Dev, can you please lead us in prayer? And dear Lord, thank you for allowing us to all be here today. I pray that you would bless our service, help us to learn something from now. Please build a pastor with your spirit and teach them a prayer, amen. Amen. Amen. All right, so the subject matter of the sermon for this morning is a pastor's salary. A pastor's salary. Now, this isn't the most fun subject to preach on, at least not for me. I'm not fond of preaching on money, especially when it comes to the pastor and church and stuff, but it is necessary, and it's something that needs to be nailed down. I think everyone needs to have a firm understanding of, and for a lot of people, you might not have ever even really given it a whole lot of consideration, right? I mean, some people do. You see things like, you can see someone like Joel Osteen, and they're in this just multimillion dollar house and stuff, and you can kind of look at that and just be like, that's ridiculous. These guys that are in it for the money and are just living this extremely rich, luxurious, lavish lifestyle, and when you see people like that, you're kind of thinking like, what a joke. Obviously, this guy's a fraud or whatever, but you may not really consider, and I know for a long time I hadn't either before, you kind of don't think about it like, well, what should it be? What should the guidelines be? What should we be doing? Because everything that we do in church, no matter what aspect of church it is, we're trying to do biblically and write according to what Scripture teaches. So when it comes to the finances of the church, it's no different, right? We have money that comes in every week because first of all, we have things we have to pay for. If we're gonna meet in a location, it's gotta be able to support all the people who are meeting. In order to do that, it costs money, no matter what location it is. I don't care where you're meeting. Unless you're just meeting outside somewhere, obviously we could do that, but I think everyone here would probably agree it makes more sense to use our resources to secure a place that's gonna be a little bit more comfortable and keep us from the elements and things like that, right? Obviously you can have church anywhere, but the whole point of having a building is having the facilities is really making it so that we can get more work done, get things accomplished. We can meet here more frequently. We have a space to use. It all makes sense, right? I'm not gonna go on and on about that. So we decide, okay, it makes sense to use money that's coming in to pay rent, to pay for electricity, to pay for things like that. We also spend a lot of money on materials, right? Just giving out DVDs, giving out Bibles, using those types of resources to just reach people because the main goal, the objective, is to try to get people saved, try to get people right with God, try to get people discipled. So that is where our effort and our focus is. So of course that's also gonna have spending going towards that. But besides those things, you also have positions or offices being held within the church that our positions that the Scripture clearly teaches should be compensated for because of the nature of the work and because God wants to have people in these positions that can focus full-time, 100% of their time and effort and energy on doing the work and the service of the Lord. Now I've preached on this subject in the past. You could go up and look some previous sermons I preach. I try not to preach the exact same thing. So I'm gonna hit different angles and different topics kind of related to the same thing. So I've gone in the past and gone through like transitioning from Old Testament to New Testament, showing how the priests and Levites were chosen of God to do the work of the tabernacle, the sanctuary, to do the work of the Lord essentially, and how that transitions obviously into the New Testament with New Testament churches. But positions are still kind of performing the same job functions. The church is still performing the same functions that it did in the past. There's a lot of similarities. The tithe is not done away with. I'm not preaching on that this morning. But there's a lot of things that are very similar that the model and the pattern is very similar when it comes to having people in those positions. So before we even really get into the money aspect of it, we need to start with this because biblically, one of the most important things here where we started looking at the qualifications for bishops and for deacons, let's go back to verse number one here. The Bible says, this is a true saying. If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. It's a good thing. Hey, if you want to hold the position of a bishop in a church, that's a good thing. You desire a good work. You desire a good thing. It's good to want to become the bishop of a church. But then it's gonna start to go into some of these qualifications and say, well, if that's what you want to do, mind you, if this is the position you want to do, if you want to be a teacher, instructor of God's Word, you want to be an overseer of a church, you want to be able to help people in that manner, then here's some things that you need to have if you want to fit that bill. So verse two says, a bishop then must be blameless. The husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given hospitality, aptitude. So you need to have these skills. You need to have these characteristics. You need to have these qualities about you or else you're not gonna be a good pastor. You're not gonna be qualified even a pastor because a pastor is required to have these things under his belt, basically. Then verse number three continues. It says, not given a wine, no striker, but let him look at the next phrase. Not greedy, a filthy lucre. So a pastor, right off the bat, even before you become a pastor, you need to see like, hey, you can't be greedy, and lucre is just money, right? You can't be greedy of money. You can't just be, and then it says, but patient, not brother, then it says not covetous, right? So you can't be covetous. You can't just have your eyes focused on things, just be all about money and stuff like that. That is not the heart of a pastor. That's not what a pastor should be going into the position for, and has nothing to do with the money. Now, as we get into this a little bit, just, you know, what you can do, and what you should do is, you know, when you're going to church, you should know your pastor at least somewhat. I mean, you should kinda know a little bit about his heart, about his drive, about his motivation, before we even get into any talking about actual dollar amounts and things like that, because this is an extremely important point when it comes to dealing with this subject, because at the end of the day, there isn't a set dollar amount that the Bible says a pastor can make this much and no more, or this much or this much or whatever it is. It's not clearly just delineating. We're gonna see that. So the most important thing, and the most clearly defined thing, is that the pastor needs to be someone who's not greedy. They're not money hungry. It's not all about the money for them. Okay, when you're deciding a compensation for someone who's doing that work, we need, you know, the most important thing is you've got someone who they're not worried about the money, because when you have someone who's worried about the money and focused on the money aspect of things, that's gonna impact the way that they do their job. It's gonna impact the way they preach. It's gonna impact so many other things about the management of the funds, about the management of everything. It's gonna impact that when you have someone who's just greedy and all they care about is money. And this is one of the things that you'll see too, oftentimes, unfortunately, you go into churches and all you're hearing about every week is the money, the money, the money, the tithe, and that's just like the focus. And they're focused on carnal things and not on the spiritual things. So the good news is if you're in a church, you've got someone, you say, you know what, my pastor is not greedy, he's not covetous, that's already, you know, a great starting point because you hopefully then will have someone who's qualified to be a pastor, let alone, you know, people are greedy, they're not even qualified. The Joel Osteens, they're not qualified to be pastors because they're covetous and because they're greedy of filthy lucre. But then you can move on from there. And even the deacons too, you jump down to verse 8, it gives the qualifications of a deacon, which is another office in the church, says, likewise, must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, not given a much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre. It's really important that people who are in church offices are not greedy people. Because especially as a church grows, there's gonna be more and more money that comes into a church, just more funds in general. I mean, there's more people, people are giving, right, and need to be able to manage those funds. And you want someone managing that that isn't greedy and just coveting and wanting those funds for themselves, but is able to make appropriate decisions on how should the money be handled and what should we be doing this, and keeping the main objective in sight and in line and not be focused on these carnal things and saying, hey, no, this is what we wanna do. We wanna reach more people, we wanna do this, we wanna do that, right? Some of the things that I was already talking about with the funds that we receive, well, how are we gonna do this? Sometimes people buy vehicles, and like, well, we can get these sewing vans, and we can go out and do this extra work. I mean, you're kind of thinking about all this stuff and say, well, how are we gonna manage our money? That's what you need. One of the reasons why it's important that the people who are in these positions of leadership aren't greedy. Now, flip over to Titus 1. We're gonna see, again, some more, another parallel passage to 1 Timothy 3, given the qualifications of a bishop. We're gonna see a lot of same things reiterated. Verse number seven in Titus 1, the Bible reads, for a bishop must be blameless as a steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre, again, that's called out there in Titus, but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate, holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers, for there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, especially, they have the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, look at this, teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake. So one of the main reasons why you need to have someone in a position that's not gonna be greedy, not given to filthy lucre, is because people will start teaching things and changing their doctrine and changing what they preach because of filthy lucre's sake. So whether that be, and that could be a few different things, right? One, it may be, well, I'm not gonna preach on sin, I'm not gonna preach on things that are gonna offend people, because if I preach that way, then there's gonna be less people in the church, which means there'll be less money, or people get offended at the preaching, then they're not gonna wanna give because they're offended, they're angry, they're upset with me, so I'm just gonna withhold and I'm gonna censor the Word of God, and I'm gonna preach whatever for filthy lucre's sake, because I'm caring more about the money than I am about people's wellbeing. That's one of the concerns with getting someone in a position. Another one could be, though, too, for filthy lucre's sake, just catering to someone who you know gives a lot of money. Right, catering to the one person, like, oh man, this person, they give so much money, and then you're just, people, if you got a pastor that cares about that and is focused on that and they're greedy of that money, they're just gonna be catering and doing everything and preaching what that person, even if it's false doctrine, whatever it is, they're gonna be doing everything to appease that one person or those few people or whatever. That happens. It happens a lot, and it's wicked, it's wrong, it's bad, it's obviously ungodly and not the way that God has designed things to be set up. One of the reasons for not being greedy is because of things like that. That would be one, that's a great example of what could happen when you have someone who is, and it's also a way to determine if you have someone who's more money motivated than not. Now, flip over to 1 Peter chapter five. Also, this is my last point on this, or last reference on this. We're gonna see one more exhortation on the pastor, or the elders, what they refer to in 1 Peter chapter five. Again, bishop, pastor, elder, all synonymous terms. You could use them interchangeably in scripture, talking about the same position or office. 1 Peter chapter five, verse number one, the Bible reads, the elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed. Feed the flock of God, which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint but willingly, not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being in samples to the flock. So again, we're seeing here, hey, I'm an elder, I'm speaking to the elders, he's addressing the elders here. He's saying, feed the flock. Don't take the oversight because you have to, by constraint, but because you're willing, you're offering yourself, you're being a servant, you're being a minister, you're trying to help people out, you've got the right heart, you're doing it willingly, and it's not for filthy lucre's sake. It's not because you're in it for the money, it's because you want to do it, you have a ready mind, you're prepared to do the work. So over and over, and we see the motivation is what matters the most when it comes to the pastor and it comes to that role, is that the motivation for coming pastors should have nothing to do with the money, and because of what we've seen, an example of other people who are preaching and teaching for filthy lucre's sake, you can look at what's being preached if you're uncertain of the motivations. If you're wondering what motivates a pastor or a preacher, because here's what happens. You may have someone, and usually it's people who have no idea what someone's getting paid or whatever, but they see things that they don't like, or maybe you have someone who has always been kind of poor, and then they look at other people almost covetously, or they look down on people that actually have some money and have some wealth, and just are always looking down on people as if they're wicked people because maybe God has blessed them, right? I wanna make this point, and you know what? It may be uncomfortable and it may not be something that you came in wanting to listen to this morning, but it just needs to be said. People who have money aren't inherently wicked or bad or evil, and people who work really hard and end up getting good paying jobs, there's nothing wrong with that at all. People make different amounts of money, and you know what, some people are driven and work really hard, and I'd be willing to say this too, if you have someone who's a good pastor, a good pastor is gonna be a really hard worker. They're gonna be willing to sacrifice and put a lot of time and energy and effort into that job, so what you'll also find, a pastor has all these various attributes that says you need to have for a position they're also gonna be really good workers. If they never pastor to church, I bet you that person, that same person, would do really, really well in their career in the world because they have these attributes, because they're working hard, they're not giving the wine, they're not gonna be foolish with their money, they'll be doing a lot of good, they have a lot of good characteristics that's gonna help you in life no matter what you end up doing, and these people will probably end up getting pretty good paying jobs because they're gonna apply themselves and do a lot of work, and it just makes sense, so no matter what position they're holding, you're probably gonna look at them and go, oh man, that person is this, that, you know, and you shouldn't have that attitude, and usually I see that type of attitude from people who may not have had the best start or haven't had a lot to build on or whatever, or from people who are lazy and don't understand how to work real hard to achieve things in life. Now look, I know that life isn't all about money, and it's not, and I don't believe it's all about money, and that's not a true, real indicator of your success, that's the world's indicator of success, it's how much money you have, but it's also not something that you just need to disdain people if they have money, if they have a good paying job or whatever, you know, it shouldn't really be much of anything. Now, this is in a realm of kind of normalness. I've mentioned people like Joel Osteen or something, you can see it's obvious what his motivation is, you can see how they run the service, how many times are passer-in collections around, what are they talking about all the time, what are they not talking about, is the doctrine changed, are they preaching Bible, you know, that's obvious. So people like that, it's easy to call out and say, oh man, that guy is just money motivated, because the Bible, that's why the Bible even has this stuff in here to show us, hey look, there's gonna be people out there that are motivated just by the money, but other people, you can't assume that someone's just money motivated if they have money. Does that make sense? Like if you have some wealth, it doesn't just mean that that's all they care about or focused about. And you know, I'll put it this way too, if I, personally, if I was interested in Filthy Lucre, like if that was my motivation for pastoring a church, I wouldn't pastor a church, because now with the way that I preach, and besides, I've got a good career path. I have a good job that if I wanted to, if I really cared about money, it would make more sense for me to continue just hitting that career really, really hard. And you know, who knows what could be achieved there by putting forth all the extra effort that I'm currently using to put into church and my family to put that into a career. If all I was cared about, if I was money driven, that's what I would do. And that would make a lot more sense, because I already have a good job, and it can be even better. But I'm not trying to make this just about me, but you gotta consider this too. You think about a pastor people, you know, usually they can be doing other things if they're money motivated. The most important thing, again, is gonna be if anything like this ever comes up, or if you're thinking about it and saying, well, what should a pastor's salary be? First you gotta think of, is the pastor money motivated or not? And that should be pretty obvious. You can test the ministry, you can test what's being preached, knowing a little bit about the pastor, saying, you know what, okay, yeah, at least he's not money motivated, so that's a good thing. That's where you start. But you still are gonna have to figure out, you know, what is right, what's appropriate. And that's kind of, and that's a harder line to draw. Now, before I even get into that, I forgot I have some notes here on some false concepts. I already kind of brought it up of people having money doesn't make that inherently wicked. And actually, if you think about men of God in the Bible, there was actually a lot of men of God who were wealthy. God is blessed with wealth. And they were great men of God. You've got Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. All of them had a lot of wealth. Abraham had servants. I mean, he literally had servants. He was like an employer. He had people working for him. When he wanted Isaac to get married, he sent off his servant, and they had these jewels that they were giving. And then you get to Jacob, and you think, remember when Jacob was meeting back up with Esau? Remember how hard he worked for Laban? But then he's like sending these droves of flocks and all this stuff. Because God blessed him, because he worked real hard. He was doing what he's supposed to be doing, and God ended up blessing him. Now, not everyone is blessed financially of God, and again, that's not an indicator of you being right with God. But God does choose to bless some people financially. It's a fact. It happens, okay? Now, again, we don't look at that. We're not the prosperity preachers of going, oh, well, if you don't have a lot of money, then you're not right with God. That's nonsense, because there's also a lot of people who haven't had much wealth at all and are poor and have served God tremendously and have done a lot of great things. Jesus Christ himself is clear that he came from very humble beginnings and a humble background of not a wealthy family, but then you have other people like Moses, who was brought up in Pharaoh's household in a wealthy family, right? And he rejected the money and all that ease to go through hard times with his people and to lead them out and do what's right, and that's where his heart was, and that's what really matters. Regardless of what he had and how much wealth he had, his heart was right and he was doing what was right by God. Solomon also, Solomon had his heart right. God blessed him. He gave him all kinds of wealth. I mean, it was just unsurpassed up to that point, for sure. He had more wealth than anybody, but there was nothing inherently sinful or wrong about that either. So, again, it's not the amount of money someone has isn't an indicator of how godly they are or how wicked they are just by having the money. It's the motivation behind, oh, I want to be a pastor because I just want to get all this money. That's a whole different story. Now, turn, if you will, to 1 Timothy 5. I'm going to start by laying some groundwork here just with the word honor. I've covered this many times before, but we're going to prove in the context, even of 1 Timothy 5, that the word honor is being used not as just respect, but as taking care of financially, caring for, providing for, giving provision for. That's what the word honor means here. So, we're going to start at the beginning of the chapter here. Verse number three says honor widows that are widows indeed. And then it's going to go on to define who is a widow indeed. So, who fits into this category of being a widow indeed? You know, if anyone would have children or nephews, let them learn first to show piety at home and to requite their parents, for that is good and acceptable. Now, she is a widow indeed and desolate, and untrusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day. So, a widow indeed is someone who's got their heart right with serving the Lord, right? We see that. Jump down to verse number eight. It says, but if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he had denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. So, as the Bible's going into describing a widow and that the widow should be honored, it brings up someone not providing for his own being worse than an infidel. So, we see there the reference to provision, to providing for it. This is someone who has a family, they have a relative, they have maybe a grandma is not working, she's widowed, and if you're not providing for her, then your mom or whatever, your parents especially, the Bible says that you're supposed to honor your father and your mother. And again, we could go down that road as well when Jesus was rebuking the Pharisees and their Jewish tradition was, they called it korban or a gift by whatsoever their parents are profited by them saying, oh, if I'm gonna take care of you, you just consider that a gift. Like, I'm doing something nice for you, whereas the Bible commands it and says, no, you need to honor your father and your mother. You need to take care of them. That's your duty and your responsibility to take care of your parents. And it's the same thing here. And it uses that word honor as the word to show that you need to provide for them, which is why in verse eight, it transitions to use the word provide, but if any provide not for his own house, especially for those of his own house, he had denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. And then it goes on, continues about, let a widow not be taken in a number under three score years old. And it goes on still continuing about the widows. And then in verse 16, the Bible reads, if any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them and let not the church be charged that it may relieve them that are widows indeed. Again, what is this talking about, relieve? This isn't talking about respecting anybody. This isn't talking about just speaking to someone with respect. This is talking about relieving their burdens, right? Relieving their stress, relieving their financial responsibilities to survive that you're gonna help them. And it says, let not the church be charged, right? Because you're not gonna charge the church with that work of taking care of the widows when they have family members that should be doing that very thing. Verse 17, and now we're gonna switch from the widows to the elders. Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine. For the scripture saith, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn, and the laborer is worthy of his reward. So when it's talking about elders here, I believe it's the same thing, the same way it's being used in 1 Peter 5, when it was talking about elders, this is the same position within the church of a bishop or a pastor, which is also known as an elder, because one of the qualifications for being an elder or a pastor is that you need to be able to rule the house of God. That's why you have to have your family, your children in subjection, because you're gonna be ruling the house of God. And it says here that the elders that rule well should be counted worthy of double honor. So honor is being taken care of, honor is being provided for, right? Your needs are met. The elder that rules well, according to scripture, and this is gonna be the closest thing we have to base our teaching off of what should a salary be, if you're thinking about paying a man of God to be a pastor of a church, well, if someone is ruling well, they're doing a good job, they're working, especially they who labor in the Word and doctrine, they're really focused, they're doing a lot of effort and work on the Word of God, on getting solid doctrine, on teaching, on preaching, on doing this stuff. Someone who's doing that really well, they says they should be worthy of double honor. So the honor, usually what single honor would be enough to provide like the widows are getting honored by having their needs met. Well, double honor is twice that, right? So it's not just your physical needs being met, you're getting more on top of that, twice as much more. Does that kind of make sense, right? That's a good guideline. And now that's for someone who's actually doing the work because God doesn't want elders just getting fat and not doing their job. People who are just lazy, they think they're in it for the money, they shouldn't be getting paid. You need to be working, right? You need to be laboring and doing a good job in order to be worthy of receiving double honor. Now, this still begs the question, well, how much a pastor get paid and how can you calculate double honor? And there's a lot of questions that come up. How would you even value the work that the pastor's doing? Right? Because if you start thinking about this in, just in real life, you've got all kinds of different jobs out there that have all different types of salaries. And the reason being, there's more value added to different positions, right? Someone who's just doing a more mundane task of just something that's real repetitive that doesn't require any thinking, doesn't require much skill, doesn't pay very much because there's not a whole lot of value in that. It may need to be done, but overall it's not going to profit much more than just a little bit, right? But the more responsibilities, the more things that are being done that can be a more profitable position are the ones that are going to get more pay. And when you think about someone who's in a position of overseeing the church, who's supposed to be laboring and serving up spiritual meals and getting good doctrine and putting all this stuff together and kind of really leading and guiding a big movement or a big force, a big push to serve the Lord, it's kind of like, well, what is that worth? Now, I'm not going to come and stand up here and give you a dollar amount this morning. It's not the point of this sermon is to do that because one, I think that different churches and different people are probably going to come up with different ideas on what they should do. And a lot of it's going to have to do with, well, how much money is even coming in? What do we even have to work with here, right? But I think some people might have a backwards mentality of thinking, well, a double honor is counted. We could just base that off minimum wage or something. Like, what's just the lowest level? And then, okay, well, we could double that. But it's like, is that really fair and accurate? I mean, is that how you would value that position? Now, on the one hand too, you could say, well, it's the most valuable job in the whole world, so you should be getting, it's like, well, I don't think we take it to that extreme either, but you still ought to be looking at this as what is the value? Turn, if you would, to 1 Corinthians 9, and I'm going to read for you, I think another guiding principle in this can be found in Proverbs 30. And I don't have this in my notes, but you're turning to 1 Corinthians 9. Proverbs 30, verse 8, there's wisdom here just kind of when, in regards to having money or making money, earning money. Proverbs 30, verse 8 says, Remove far from me vanity and lies. Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny thee and say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vain. And that is a great, just biblical principle to kind of live by, that none of us should be striving to just have all of these riches, because that could actually be bad for us. But at the same time, you don't want to be in just utter poverty either. See, some people have this concept that, oh, a minister, a pastor, they should have this vow of poverty and have nothing and everything else. You know what? That's not really biblical either. I don't see that anywhere in Scripture of saying that the pastor should be compensated so low that they basically just have nothing other than the shirt on their back and like some bread and water for food or something. That's a weird concept. That's more of like a Catholic thing. Like, monks do stuff like that or whatever. That is not right and not godly. I think what the Bible teaches here in this wisdom is you know what? I don't want to be super rich. I don't want to have all these riches. But I also don't want to be real poor either and just be driven to practically have to be a beggar or something. Just give me food that's convenient for me. And my opinion, when you have a pastor, you look at their pastor, you look at the family, well, what's going to be provided to have just good, healthy food, right? To be able to afford just to feed their family with good food, good meal, not have to worry about getting the cheapest value meal that's going to cause you cancer anyways or whatever down the road. Like, how about just being able to be provided for and maybe a little extra on top of that if they're working really hard and laboring and they're worthy of double honor. To me, that seems pretty normal. And I think it'd also be a good idea just to compare and look at what are other salaries and jobs and stuff paying. Obviously, I believe this is a position that's kind of, I mean, it's important and it's valuable. It's hard to compare it to secular jobs just because of the nature of what you're doing. But it is important. And as long as you've got someone who's not, it's not like they're not getting into it for the money, then compensating someone and taking care of them, it's a good thing to do. 1 Corinthians 9. I like preaching the sermons now too because I'm not full-time here and I don't have some salary. So I'm not pitching this to try to be like, hey, I think I should get more money or something like that. But either way, even if I was full-time, the biblical principles still stand. And the church should be in unison on this subject too because unfortunately, things like money split people up and divide people. I mean, even marriages. This greed and covetousness is really bad and can do a lot of damage and cause a lot of problems. So I'd rather get ahead of something like that, at least within the church, and try to get like, hey, this is where we're grounded on, this is what we're established on. So even in the future, this is the doctrine that we're relying on and looking to when it comes to determining things like salaries, because hopefully one day we'll continue to grow and have multiple people on staff here that are gonna get paid to do the work of the Lord. Even if they're not a pastor or a deacon, I would love to have people on staff that can just be filling positions of being dedicated to serving God. And kind of the concept that we use of, well, what should a job like that pay is important. And I don't want people getting bitter or letting this money, some stupid money thing, become a problem, because maybe someone doesn't have a proper context or understanding of even how we should be viewing this stuff and they have a backwards view of, oh man, you make that, you know, like, whatever. This is kind of a weird, also you gotta consider too. I mean, think about even just in the world, people who have a lot of experience generally have, they're more valuable because you've learned a lot more. And people who've been pastoring for a long time, you know, if you kind of think of it the same way, you have a lot of experience and should have a lot more wisdom and should be more valuable of a teacher and a leader and everything else too. And it would make sense for, you know, being compensated would naturally, seems like it makes sense to be shown that value by the people willing to give a salary in that regard. So it's another way of kind of thinking about it. Anyhow, when you're coming up with numbers, and again, we're not gonna be sitting down and come up with any numbers because we have enough to pay rent and do a few extra activities and stuff like that here. We are not at the point of sitting down and meeting out a salary. But like I said, I wanted to get this teaching down here. You're in 1 Corinthians 9, look at verse number one. The Bible reads, am I not an apostle? Am I not free? Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord? Are not ye my work in the Lord? If I be an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you. For the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord. So the apostle Paul is opening this up. The first one is saying, look, am I not an apostle? Like I'm an apostle to other people. How much more to you? Because he's speaking to this church that like this is the fruit of his labor. He went out and went soul-winding and got these people saved and started this church and really kind of founded all this stuff by the sweat of his labor, going out and doing this work. So he's kind of approaching them this way and saying like, yet doubtless, if I'm an apostle to others, doubtless I am to you. I mean, the whole point you're here is because of apostle Paul, right? So this is the perspective he's coming from. Verse three, mine answer to them that do examine me is this. So now we already have people who are detractors of the apostle Paul, right? Because now he has to answer people that are examining him. Oh, well, what is this Paul? What are you getting from us? What are you doing? And they're kind of looking hard at the apostle Paul. And I would say unrighteously, right? These people are just looking to pick him apart or whatever. And the church at Corinth had a lot of problems, but he's answering them here and he brings up like even the fact of receiving money or receiving compensation and stuff in this chapter, obviously people are looking at him and they might be throwing out some accusations or just throwing out questions. So it's not an accusation, it's just a question, right? So he's saying, here's my answer to them that examine me. Those people who really want to look real close at my life and see and get in every little detail of what I'm doing, here's my answer. Have we not power to eat and to drink? Aren't we able to eat? Have we not power to lead about a sister or wife as well as other apostles and as the brethren of the Lord and Cephas? So remember, the apostle Paul was not married, but he's saying, I can get married if I want. Don't I have the power to get married if I want? Just like these other apostles, just like the brethren of Jesus Christ himself, like they got married, they have families. What about Cephas, Peter? Peter was married, by the way, Peter was married. You know, the Catholic church likes to call him the first pope and everything, and they don't allow the popes to get married because they're weird and they're unsaved and they don't understand scripture at all. Peter was married. That's who Cephas was. His wife's mother, his mother-in-law was sick and Jesus healed her of the fever that she had. That's in scripture two, besides this verse here. Anyways, I don't wanna get off on that topic. Let's keep going here, verse six, because he's answering those that are examining him. He's saying, look, we have power to eat and drink. We have power to get married if we want to. Verse six, are I only in Barnabas? Have we not power to forbear working? So what this means is that he was working because he was a tent maker. Him and Barnabas, they were working. They're providing their own way as they were going out on their missions trip and preaching the gospel and serving people. They were also working, but he's saying, don't we have power to not just stop working if we want to? We don't have to keep doing our jobs and doing this work. We could, if we want to, stop doing that and literally just be compensated for the work that we're doing spiritually. Look at verse number seven. Who goeth a warfare at any time at his own charges? Meaning like at your own expense. Who's gonna go to war? If the United States got involved with some war or something, you're gonna, if you're gonna go fight for the country, you're gonna expect to be given provision, right? Like here's a weapon, we're gonna assign you a weapon. You're gonna receive that. You're gonna receive meals. You're gonna receive the clothing, the boots, the gear, all that stuff. You're not just gonna go and be like, oh yeah, I just brought all my own stuff. I mean, it just, that doesn't happen. No one's going to war and outfitting yourself, right? Who planteth a vineyard and eateth not of the fruit thereof? You're saying when you're doing work, you have your own vineyard. Think about this, you plant a garden in your backyard and you're putting forth the effort, you're going out and watering it, you're plowing it, you're cultivating it, you're doing all this work, but you're not gonna have any of it. Nobody does that. Of course you're gonna eat of and consume of the fruit that you're putting your work into or who feedeth a flock and eateth not of the, he brings up all these examples like you are gonna be involved with the work that you're doing. You should be able to receive of that. And he says in verse eight, say I these things as a man or sayeth not the law the same also. So now he's saying, what, do you think it's just as just my worldly philosophy and just saying this as a man as just in the flesh here? He's like, the Bible says the same thing. And he brings up in verse number nine, for it is written in the law of Moses, thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. So then even in God's law, he's telling us that when the ox is laboring and working and stamping out corn and making corn meal and just doing this work, you don't muzzle that ox, you let him eat a little bit of the work that he's doing because he's worthy to be able to eat that. And he's saying that's found in the word of God. And it's talking about an ox, like an animal. I mean, first of all, how much better are people than animals and that's why he goes on to explain. He says, doth God take care for oxen? He's like, does God really care about that ox and about you muzzling that ox because the poor ox won't be able to eat? That's not what God cares about. He's showing a greater truth, a greater principle. This is being explained by the apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost to the church at Corinth, which is why it's found in the Holy Bible today. Verse 10, or saith it all together for our sakes. For our sakes, no doubt. Is there any doubt that this is written for our sakes? No doubt. No doubt this is written that he that ploweth should plow in hope and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things? Now, so far up to this point, he's talking about answering those that examine him in verse number three. Look at how much time he's spending on just being able to receive of the work they do. He's saying, we're sowing spiritual things. We've been laboring in the word and in the doctrine and we're feeding you with all the spiritual truth and all the spiritual goodness and we're feeding you this stuff. Is it really that big of a deal if while we're feeding you with all this spiritual meat and spiritual truth that we get lunch, that we get fed so that we can continue doing this work? Is that really some big deal? Like, is that a big problem that we reap your carnal things? Verse number 12, if others be partakers of this power over you, are not we rather? Nevertheless, we have not used this power but suffer all things, lest we should hinder the gospel of Christ. He was saying, we have this power but we have not used this power. He is fully capable of saying, no, I need to be supported by you guys. I'm here teaching you. I'm here doing all this stuff. I'm dedicating my time to you and you need to take care of me. And he has the power to go in and say, you need to take care of me. But he says, you know what? We're not gonna use that power. And my understanding is because he saw how weak these people were and how many problems they had. He's like, I don't want to have any more stumbling blocks before them, so you know what? I'm just gonna go ahead and I'm just gonna work and I'm just gonna labor twice as hard because I really care about these people. I want them to grow. Even though it's right for me to be able to demand this of them because I have that power, see, I'm not gonna do it because I'm just gonna show them the right way and I'm gonna work real hard and leave that as an example for them. I don't want the gospel being hindered at all. Even if he's taking something that's rightfully, lawfully fine for him to do. Verse 13, do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? So now he's bringing up like the Levites. He says the people who do the minister about holy things, they live of the things of the temple. The people who are doing that work, they live of that stuff. That's how they survive. And they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar. Don't you know that? The Levites are offering up these sacrifices. Don't you know that they eat those sacrifices? Like, I mean, they're doing this work of God and then they're also eating of it. They're consuming that. They're receiving that. It's not just all going to the Lord. They're benefiting from it. They're receiving of it. So he brings up this example. You say, watch Old Testament. Well, verse 14, even so, even so means in the like manner, the same way that they are receiving from doing their work, even so at the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel. So absolutely, God has ordained. It's chosen by God that the way that he's going to operate is that the people who are going to go off, preach the gospel, you know what? They ought to be able to live of the gospel. They shouldn't have to worry about getting other jobs and other means of income and other sources that just like the Levites, they're not going off and doing other work. They're serving the Lord. And then they partake of the job that they're doing. Well, it's the same thing for those that preach the gospel. That's what he's saying. This is exactly what's being taught here. And then the last place we'll look at is Malachi 3. There's one other concept here. The main concept though, when it comes to pastors being paid, in my opinion is, number one, they ought to be cared for completely. Just not have to worry about needing to get other means to support themselves and their family. To be distracted in what they're doing, to have to go out and do this other work. That food's going to be provided for them. There's not going to be concerns and not have to just stress out and worry about stuff like that. That their basic needs can be met. That's primary. And we're going to see that here also in Malachi 3. Verse number eight starts off talking about tithes. It says, well, a man robbed God, yet ye have robbed me. But you say, wherein have we robbed thee in tithes and offerings? Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, look at this, that there may be meat in mine house. So he's saying the purpose of the tithes there in the Old Testament here in Malachi 3 was that there should be meat and inside there'd be food, right? People from the whole nation were bringing tithes in and the Levites and the priests were the ones that were partaking in those tithes. That they were the ones offering them up and then they would eat of that and that would sustain them. And that was part of God's plan. Now, the people, the other people, the other tribes would bring it in, they were giving that to God, right? I mean, that's their tithe that they owe to God. So it's between them and God. But basically God is giving that to the Levites and the priests to care for them and do that. And this is the system that God set up and the system works great when people are doing what they're supposed to be doing. And He set it up so that, you know what? The tithes are gonna support these people. These people are gonna be serving me full time and it can all work out. He says, improve me now here with, said the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it. So He's saying, you know, bring the tithes in. I want there to be food. And He's saying, don't worry about, you know, oh, but I'm giving a 10th of myself away. He's like, look, I'll bless you. If you just do what I'm telling you to do, I will bless you. Verse 11, He continues on to explain His blessing. He says, and I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground. So He's saying, you do what I'm telling you to do, I'll bless you so that the land is gonna bring forth the fruit. And then you have no reason to worry at all. You continue giving and you're gonna end up having more than you would have if you didn't give the tithe because of the blessing, because there's not gonna be, you're not gonna be having loss. You're not gonna have the devourer come in. You're not gonna have these plagues come in and destroy your crop. You're not gonna have this stuff because God's gonna protect you and look out for you. This is what He's teaching. He says, neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, said the Lord of hosts. And all nations shall call you blessed for ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts. So He's saying, you're gonna be blessed. People are gonna call you blessed because you have so much prosperity. You have so much wealth because you're doing what's right and God is there making sure your crops are gonna keep growing. You're giving the tithes. The Levites, the priests can continue doing the full-time work of the Lord and everybody's cared for. Now, one of the things I like that I was thinking about, especially preparing for this sermon is the job and whether it be the Old Testament or New Testament, the people who are serving the Lord and are employed about that business, their pay is kind of incentivized two ways, two different ways. One is that the primary reason is when you're working for the Lord, you're not working, you're not doing it for the earthly stuff, right? Now, the earthly stuff, you need to have the carnal things to keep going. You need to eat, right? You need to be able to keep going, but you're doing it to earn rewards in heaven, right? God's gonna pay you for the work that you're doing for Him regardless of what position you hold, what office you're in. Everybody gets paid for that. And that should be the motivation of everyone. That should be the motivation of the pastor, the deacon, anyone who's employed about the things of God. All of it is gonna be motivated by, hey, I'm gonna be racking up rewards in heaven by doing this work. And I'm focused on spiritual things. I'm not focused on the carnal things. The carnal things are there, but not worried about that. So the more salvations, the more people you see getting right with God, you're gonna earn more eternal rewards. But also, like we saw in Malachi 3, God's gonna bless your land and your nation. The more people that you have turning to the Lord, getting right with God, doing things that are right, there's gonna be more blessings upon the land as a whole. So the more impact that you can have, especially like a pastor could have in an area and getting people right with God and working really hard to reach people, to get to their heart, to get through to them, at the end of the day, it's gonna serve as an incentive because there should be that much more blessing. And if there's more blessing and there's more people coming in, then there's gonna be more tithe coming in, which is gonna just be more security in what you're doing. So I thought that's kinda neat that the way it's incentivized, well, hey, if you really wanted to do things the right way and you really cared about being cared for as a pastor, then what you need to be doing, the right way of doing it is preaching hard, preaching the Bible, getting people right with God and reaching as many people as you can because when you're getting people right with God, God's system will work its way out and you'll be cared for. So the end of the day where I fall on this and the way that we're gonna do things here, when it comes to salary, I've already talked to the manager a while ago because I do get some compensation for doing this, but my position is I'm gonna be speaking with the men whenever it comes time to looking at pay and get a consensus between people here because that's one area I kinda, with every other area, I'm confident, well, I'm confident in all of it, but with managing the finances, I like to be other input when it comes to the salary portion of it and that's what we're gonna do here. I don't even know what other people do at other churches, but I want there to be some involvement here because I mean, honestly, of all things, I do not want money being a problem in our church at all because it really is just kind of the stupidest thing to get all upset and worried about, like the money's just gonna be here today, gone tomorrow and that's kind of my way of demonstrating also, you know, you can see my heart, I'm not in it just trying to do anything for the money. I want things to be done right and decently and in order. I do feel like they're, you know, if you're looking at double honor and that's why I kind of think like, I don't wanna bring honor upon myself, right? I don't wanna say like, oh, well, I deserve this because everyone thinks they deserve more than they make. I mean, you go to any employer or employment place, any place of business and ask people like, hey, do you think you'd be making more money? How many people are gonna say, no, no, I don't think I should be making more money. Everyone's gonna say, of course I should be making more money, right? And when it comes to honor being bestowed on someone, I like the method, I think it's right to have others kind of bestow that on you. So it's another reason why I don't wanna just be kind of taking that on myself, if that makes sense. I'm gonna at least get some guidance from people here, we'll set up a plan for doing that. But I also feel like there's nothing wrong with being generous towards someone who's doing a lot of work and is recognized for doing a lot of work and being cared for doubly. To where not only are there needs being met, but there's also extra being given because it's being viewed as, hey, you're doing a really good job, and you're worthy of double honor. And whatever dollar amount that is, you could debate that. And that would come time, I think in the individual churches but I don't think it's something that's like really low. Kind of my point is it's not like you have to be at the poverty line or just above or something like that, I think that's ridiculous. Jobs should be given appropriately. And it's definitely scriptural, there's a lot more verses, I kinda wanted to go into that aspect a little bit more this morning. I preach other sermons in the past, if you're not convinced on this, go and check out those other sermons just on people getting paid, but I think it's pretty straightforward. But let's have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you so much for giving us instruction in all areas of our life and of the church life, dear Lord, I pray that you would just help us to, in all that we do, we bring honor and glory unto your name, and that you would be able to use us and build our church and help us to reach more people. God, sometimes these topics could be a little uncomfortable, even for me, I don't like talking about all this stuff, but it is important, and Lord, you know my heart, and I'm gonna teach all the counsel of God and everything that you have for us to learn and gain wisdom by, and I'm not gonna leave anything unsaid, and Lord, we just ask for your guidance and wisdom, and we pray that you'll please just be with us today, especially as we go out soul-winding, help us to reach people who are gonna be receptive to hearing your word today. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.